School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, UK.
BMC Ecol Evol. 2021 May 6;21(1):79. doi: 10.1186/s12862-021-01814-9.
Animals living in social groups can benefit from conducting the same behaviour as other group members. If this synchronisation is achieved by copying the behaviour of other individuals, we would expect synchrony to be more likely when pairs of individuals are close together.
By comparing the behaviour of a focal individual with its nearest, second nearest and third nearest neighbour and a control individual, we show that pairings of fallow deer Dama dama are more likely to be active or inactive at the same moment in time if they are closer together. We also demonstrate that synchronisation in the group happens more often than would be expected by chance.
Our findings suggest that there is a relationship between the synchronisation of behaviour and the spatial proximity of individuals. Spatial proximity is likely to be an important influence on how likely individuals are to be synchronised, although care needs to be taken to separate social and environmental influences on individual behaviour.
生活在群体中的动物可以从与其他群体成员进行相同的行为中受益。如果这种同步是通过复制其他个体的行为来实现的，那么当个体彼此靠近时，我们预计同步更有可能发生。
通过比较一只被关注的个体与其最近、第二近和第三近的邻居以及一只对照个体的行为，我们表明，如果两只獐（Dama dama）彼此靠得更近，它们同时处于活跃或不活跃状态的可能性更大。我们还证明，群体中的同步发生的频率高于随机发生的频率。
我们的研究结果表明，行为的同步性和个体的空间接近度之间存在关系。空间接近度可能是个体同步性的一个重要影响因素，尽管需要注意区分个体行为的社会和环境影响。
